Faceplant

Specs

Strategy

Competition

Stories

 
  The competition was very short for us. In fact, we even provided a simplified graphical version of each round (Faceplant is in green). The balls don't move in the pictures, but just imagine. Anything you can come up with is probably more optimistic than what actually happened to us.

Round 1. Actually, Faceplant did exactly what we told it to do. It oriented itself towards the 2 balls, went straight, turned towards the middle goal, and stopped. Except that it mistook the corner line for the middle line, and stopped right in the middle of the top edge. At which point the other robot dragged it across the board, spun it, and tried (almost successfully) in pushing Faceplant into the other corner goal. We lost, 0-1.

Round 2. This time, we faced a less bulky opponent, who just sat in the corner goal. We even started facing the 2. Given these promising circumstances, one might think that Faceplant would get a ball in. It even saw the middle line! Unfortunately, we miscalculated the turn and overdid it a bit, just missing the middle goal. To make matters worse, our robot then decided to take a road trip across the board. Unable to steer backwards (or something), it danced maddeningly far from goals until the minute was up. We lost, 0-1. I mean, I guess we saw it coming.